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EEMA Ecommerce 99: Euro offers Europe an ebusiness advantage

by Jo Pettitt in Paris

The move to Emu is Europe's biggest opportunity to become leaders in the world of electronic commerce, an industry expert said today.

Speaking at the European Electronic Messaging Association's (EEMA) electronic commerce conference in Paris today, Therese Angue, managing director of French EDI standards body GENCOD-EAN, said that if correctly managed, the introduction of the euro will allow Europe to take the lead in ebusiness.

"The combination of the euro with ebusiness will take Europe into the information age with a single currency, a singe information structure and a single market," said Angue.

However, she added that there were still some factors holding future ecommerce growth back in Europe.

"There is still a major IT skill shortage and this is hindering growth. The industry also has to create a need for homes to purchase PCs and get Internet access in order to drive consumer ebusiness growth. However, the need will be created when packages of attractive services are offered - these are not yet available," she said.

Angue went on to say that information and communication technology is growing at a rate of around eight per cent to nine per cent a year in Europe.

"IP technology is increasingly employed in networks and traffic on the Internet is currently doubling every 100 days in the region. By the end of 2001 there will be 58 million devices accessing the Internet and the number of Internet accounts in Europe will have reached 68 million," she predicted.